In keeping with my policy of providing the “writing-of” afterword to each republished story here, what follows is my latest afterword, “Writing The Little Things.” I hope you enjoy it, and of course if it makes you want to spend 99c to buy the story, so much the better.

Writing "The Little Things"Many years ago I first read about the annual red crab migration on Christmas Island. It was in National Geographic, accompanied by some amazing photos of roads and streets and the stairs of public buildings entirely covered in masses of fortunately vegetarian crabs, while the islanders went about their daily business, albeit carefully.

Christmas Island is a little speck in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia, just 135 square kilometers in area. For comparison, Seattle—where I live—is a slightly larger speck with an area barely more than 150 square km.

Fifty million or so Christmas Island red crabs, Gecarcoidea natalis, live on Christmas Island under the cover of the forest canopy. For ten months of any year, they are seldom seen unless one is looking for them. But every year from October through November (and sometimes into December), every able-bodied red crab on the island leaves its forest home and heads for the sea to mate.

Over half of the island is an Australian national park, the crabs are protected by law, and many roads are closed to vehicular traffic during the migration. That said, an estimated two million crabs a year are squashed by automobiles, and you may be sure many are eagerly snapped up by other types of predators, too. Tens of millions eventually reach their mating coves at the ocean’s edge, where each female discharges about 100,000 eggs into the sea. The survivors will later form a millions-strong reverse migration back into the forest.

So that’s the part about the crabs. Look ’em up. There are videos. It’s amazing.

This is the part about the fairies.

In 1990, Walt Disney re-released its 1940 animated film Fantasia to 500 theaters across the U.S. I remember sitting in the darkened cinema watching a sequence early in the film set to Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” In this part of the film, tiny, slender winged creatures dance through the air, sprinkle flowers with dew, and generally flit about looking charming. It really is quite a lovely bit of Disney animation. My favorite part is where the fairies bedew a spider’s web and make it sparkle like some fine lady’s gems.

I have watched this film since, and haven’t yet been able to pinpoint where what I saw might have reminded me of the red crab migration, and made me think “Yeah, but they wouldn’t look so cute if there were about fifty million of them.”

My mind began to do that thing writers’ minds do, and by the time I arrived home, I had begun to imagine a fairy migration to rival anything Christmas Island had ever seen. Only instead of an expected annual event, this one would be the entirely unexpected revival of an endangered species, and the affected people would be entirely unprepared for the complete and utter invasion of another life form into their normally uneventful lives.

And so grew the sleepy village of Morgan’s Glen, where fairies exist in picture-books, and in the fond memories of old people like Miranda Morgan, who actually saw one when she was six or seven. And into that first day of seeing fairies in the world again came Martin Price, Miss Morgan’s gentle gardener and driver, who has never done anything more violent than to set ladybugs out to eat aphids. Cook and Willamena settled into the basement kitchen to round out Miss Morgan’s minimal staff, and Mr. Pennyford and Joey Stanleigh appeared magically when needed to provide a slightly different point of view on the desirability of having fairies around.

Writing a story—even when no fairies are involved—is always a sort of magical act. Since the time I wrote “The Little Things,” I have written to order for book and game franchises, and for theme anthologies. That sort of writing can easily seem cut and dried as you begin it, but no matter how a story is called into being, some sort of creative magic arrives at some point and takes over the process. If it did not, you’d end up with a collection of sentences and paragraphs without any real life in them, and no-one—no matter how devoted to the franchise—would care to read it.

This story felt magical to me from the opening paragraph through to the last words on the last page. I made some minor revisions for Kris Rusch after sending it to her at Fantasy & Science Fiction, adding the scene where Martin and Miss Morgan discuss her reluctance to reveal the “Morgan family secret” to help the village dig out from under the fairies, and deleting a scene where Miss Morgan appears at a second town council meeting. Kris thought the scene seemed tacked on and unnecessary, and indeed it did. Good editors are worth their weight in anything you’ve got, and she’s among the best.

So there you have the story, and the story behind the story. Writing “The Little Things” was one of the most enjoyable experiences I ever had writing a piece of short fiction. I think Martin and the fairies must have done the work, and I had all the fun.

Today I'd like to give a shout out to a few of my favorite blogs for the author/publisher. These selected bloggers are overwhelmingly in favor of independent publishing as an author strategy. It's cool if you don't agree, but if you read what these very savvy people have to say, you can disagree from an increasingly informed position.

Joe Konrath - Book Country Fail“If you want to self-publish, read and learn all you can about the process. Hire smart people with references to do the heavy lifiting (proofing, formatting, cover art). Then keep your rights and keep all the money. But don’t take my word for it. Arm yourself with information and figure it out for yourself.”Read the rest atThe Newbie's Guide to Publishing.

“It gets in the way of the fun stuff.” “Attorneys cost money.” “Most books don’t earn back their advance.” These are three common (and potentially devastating) justifications that owners of publishing companies give for not paying attention to their boilerplate contacts. Similarly, many authors lack the courage that Oliver Twist exhibited when he rose from the table and said, “Please sir, I want some more.”Read the rest at CopyLaw.com. Keep up with the latest in the world of disruptive publishing innovation at The Passive Voice.

Joel Friedlander (The Book Designer) - Looking Forward, Peering Back“Now it’s really happening. Authors are walking away from $500,000 publishing contracts. Authors are selling so many self-published books they’ve become media celebrities. Self-published authors have sold millions of e-books in the Kindle store.“Agents are now publishers. Publishers have discovered readers. Retailers are publishers, even though publishers seem to be in danger of obsolescence. Yet everyone wants to be a publisher. Their own publisher."Read the rest at The Book Designer

I wasn't at the World Fantasy Convention this year, but from what I hear there was considerable debate about Michael A. Stackpole's use of the term "house slave" in blog posts to describe a type of mentality he observes in some writers who decry the trend towards author-centered publishing. Stackpole's first post to use this term, House Slaves Versus Spartacus, published in the spring of this year, likened traditionally-published authors who defend the author-unfriendly environment of traditional publishing to the Roman house slaves whose interests lay closer to their masters' than to their fellow-slaves involved in the rebellion of 73-71 b.c.e.

An Apt Analogy, or Trivializing?There's been a lot of talk since then about Mr. Stackpole's use of the term "house slaves" trivializing the horrors of American slavery. In fact, there's been a lot more talk about that than about the actual points Mr. Stackpole makes in that post, and in subsequent ones (Swimming Lessons for House Slaves, and Degrees of Slavery), about the economic and contractual inequalities that have always been part of the publishing industry, and the notion that with the predominance of digital delivery and the move towards independent publishing, the balance of power has shifted to the authors.

In addition to Mr. Stackpole's writings, blog posts and comments by Dean Wesley Smith, Kris Rusch, Joe Konrath, and Barry Eisler, to name a few really smart people with their fingers on the pulse of publishing, have been trying to explain the inadvisability of throwing all your eggs into what they believe is a sinking basket. And they've been attracting no small amount of hostility from writers who are doing just that, and from others who insist on attacking Mr. Stackpole's choice of analogies, for instance, or Mr. Konrath's tone of voice, because they can't or won't debate the actual points they're making.

On Not Being a Raging Fuck-WadToday, Tobias Buckell posted a journal entry taking Mike Stackpole to task for his choice of words. He titled it "Self publishing doesn't mean you have to be a raging fuck wad."He's quite angry about the "house slave" language, and he does make an attempt to debate Mr. Stackpole's points, but he gets his facts wrong. He claims neither Konrath nor Eisler are independent authors: "They’ve both exchanged one corporate relationship for another. So anyone who champions them as self publishing masters immediately demonstrates a lack of perception."...and..."...neither of them sell direct via websites with their own turnkey credit card systems like anyone actually *serious* about disintermediation..."

I'm not sure who died and put Mr. Buckell in charge of defining "*serious* about disintermediation," but a quick fact-check would have shown that both authors have traditional publishing deals for some of their books, other books they publish independently, and of course their famous contracts with Amazon, and that between them they sell dozens of books from their websites. "Want to read about changes in the field, want to read about the business?" Mr. Buckell asks. "Start finding people who are utilizing all the options available." Well, Mr. Buckell may not like these three authors, but they are pretty well known to utilize all the options available, and I'm amazed he's not aware of that, since it's a key point of his criticism.

“I’m tired of hearing their vile denunciations of everyone and everything," he continues. "...I hear these types on the radio...they’re no different than Rush Limbaugh or anyone else.” These don't strike me as useful or reasonable arguments in a post warning of the dangers of fuckwaddery. Vile denunciations? Everyone and everything?Rush Limbaugh or anyone else? I'd be saying this in the comments on his blog, but he doesn't allow comments.

In the Midst of Rage, Some Sage AdviceMr. Buckell is, of course, within his rights to dislike the term "house slave," and to dislike Mssrs. Eisler, Konrath, and Stackpole and their opinions on anything whatsoever to whatever degree he desires. I'd never say otherwise. And he did offer me one piece of advice I intend to follow, so thanks, Mr. Buckell, for this: "Listen to people who don’t have to denigrate, shout, and insult others to make their point."